The cable modem has been down most of the day, and I just got work email that torqued me off in a major way, so I'm just going to go to bed.

Apparently the current head of the Patent and Trademark office (who's about to lay off 135 patent examiners, by the way) doesn't see anything wrong with making regular references to God, and berated a lawyer who complained about it.

I think I've mentioned before that PharmaCo has this nifty summer hours dealie on Fridays. We're supposed to work an additional 45 minutes each Monday through Thursday, and then get out between 12:30 and 2 on Friday. Yesterday, it worked out that I was able to leave right at 12:30 (I did bring a little bit of work home for the weekend), so I decided to get the last of my big name-change errands over with, and headed over to the DMV office in Morristown.

What a freaking nightmare of incompetency and inefficiency.

Not that this fact is any great surprise, mind you. I had just thought that since I was doing a simple name change, things would go smoothly and quickly. HA!

First of all, the office has four parking spaces. FOUR! I ended up circling the block twice to find a spot closer than four blocks away on the street. Then, I noticed that the line was snaking out the door. Great. I grabbed the little form that I needed from the table and took my place at the end of the line. The first line (notice that I said *first*) did move very quickly. When I got to the front of the line, I handed over my form, my marriage license, and my driver's license. I was told to have a seat until I was called. So I sat. And sat. And read the leftover Wall Street Journal that someone had left on the chair behind me. And then finally, I was called to the cashier's window, along with about fifteen other people. I paid the five dollar fee, and was told to again have a seat until the third window person was ready to take my picture for my new license. So I sat. And sat. And sat. The most mindboggling thing I saw there happened while I was waiting for my photo to be taken. When they call people over the PA system to the cashier's line, they state that if the car in question is leased, the name of the leasing company and a description of the car will be called instead of the person registering/titling/whatevering the leased car. At one point, a company called "VBS Technologies Inc." or something like that was called, so the man whose car was leased from this company got in line. Since the cashier's line was so long at that point, another DMV worker was moving along the line, asking each person's name, so that their materials would be ready once they got up to the window.

When she reached this guy, she asked for his name. He replied, "VBS Technologies." She then asked, "OK, what's your first name, though?"

The entire section of chairs where I was seated burst out laughing as the guy slowly repeated his company name and his eyes rolled into the back of his head.

Needless to say, an hour and a half later, I had my new license, which bears an entirely different number from my old license and a photo that, while flattering, makes it appear as if I am standing on tiptoe in a strenuous effort to actually get my head into the photo. There is just oodles of blue wall and then my head at the very, very bottom. Weird.

So we went to another Jackals game last night, where we saw them beat up on the Allentown Ambassadors, and then came home to veg out. I watched the America's Junior Miss pageant (Miss NJ, who's from Verona, the next town over from ours, made it to the final eight!), with a break for a vanilla raspberry cone at Emack and Bolio's, and then crashed out.

This morning, I was awakened by the girth of 18-pound Benny sitting on my head, kneading his claws into my scalp. Hooray. He had stopped this behavior before Peabody died, but since he's been gone Benny has reverted to his needy kitten behavior. I know that he's missing Peaby terribly, so I'm trying to be sympathetic.

Anyway, I digress. So since Dave was heading down to Somerville to a LAN party with some of his friends, and since my admin has been bugging me of late about my pants being far, far too big, I decided to head off to the mall.

As an aside, I really don't talk much about my weight issues here. Suffice to say it's been a problem for a majority of my life, and I'm very, very happy about the fact that I've lost almost 30 pounds over the last several months, thus explaining my need for, well, smaller pants.

Garden State Plaza wasn't as mobbed as usual (I guess because people are off at the shore and the pool and such), and Macy's was having an amazing sale, so I ended up with some pants, some skirts, two dresses, a large bunch of tops, and a pair of shoes, and I spent less than $250. I am very pleased about this. I am also even more pleased about the fact that I am down not one but two sizes in pants, and between one and two sizes in the tops and dresses. Yay!

I took the car over to get a bath, and then zipped up to Target to buy fans for my office and for the basement, where Dave has his office. I don't know why it's impossible for me to get out of that store without spending at least $100. Granted, the fans were part of that, but I also got things like nail polish, birdseed, detergent, cotton balls, and my new favorite breakfast item, Oasis bars. I finished my errands at the A&P, where I picked up my allergy medicines and a salad, which I am happily noshing on as I sit here in front of the computer.

Tonight's plans involve dyeing my hair, writing thank-you notes, since the announcements and notes finally arrived this week, and listening to Disintegrator Radio. It's all good.

I'm not sure what it says about me that I know every single one of these songs, and that I love about 80% of them. John Cameron Mitchell. I love. And hey, we used the Muriel's Wedding version of Dancing Queen as the processional song for our wedding!

This photo is just...nauseating. Is this what it's come to? Shaping infants into eventual suicide bombers?

Some noteworthy decisions from the last day of the Supreme Court's term. No retirement announcement, yet, anyway. I found the descriptions of the demeanor of the Justices intriguing.

And hey, if you're too lazy to think up a clever way to propose to your significant other, you can always pay someone to think of an idea for you.

Please, if there is a god, please, no.

And on a lighter note, Playboy's "Women of Enron" issue is on newsstands now. I guess these women need to make money somehow.

On the same day that the Pledge of Allegiance was ruled unconstitutional by the Ninth Circuit, a judge in the southern district of New York ruled that the refusal of the NYC Board of Ed to allow a Bronx religious group to hold Sunday worship at a middle school violated the group's First Amendment rights.

A preliminary injunction was granted in favor of the Bronx Household of Faith. The judge stated that "in short, it can hardly be said that plaintiffs' proposed meetings would so dominate M.S. 206B that children would perceive endorsement by the School District of a particular religion."

I guess what the issue boils down to, yet again, is what constitutes "establishment" of a particular religion?

Stay tuned.

The execution-style murder described in this Philadelphia Inquirer article happened two blocks from the nursing home where my mom works. It sounds like the female victim had *quite* the checkered past.

I have a very, very serious problem with ABC's new reality show. My problem? They've got cameras in the jury room. How many of us can say that we wouldn't act or speak or think any differently if we knew that every move was being taped for television? People's lives are at stake here. It's appalling.

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that the Pledge of Allegiance is unconstitutional because of the words "under God."

I wonder if there's an express lane to the Supreme Court.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation has launched a video game called Carabella to teach users about copyright, fair use, online privacy, and the recording industry's restrictions on digital music.

I remember hearing about the Boy in the Box since I was a small child. I'll be amazed if police can finally solve the case.

Business groups are beginning to worry about a possible dwindling share of men to fill top corporate jobs.

Allow me to play my teeny weeny violin.

OK, our great friend Duane sent over a bunch of photos that he took at the wedding, so here's a peek at one of my favorites:

My mom currently has custody of our hard copy photos, which I will get back and scan in in the next week or so. We also have more digital photos coming, courtesy of another of Dave's friends.

Yet another job that I'd never want.

And I promise to stop posting death penalty stories 24/7 as soon as the Supremes stop rendering smart decisions about it.

I can't believe it's our one-month anniversary already.

Wow. I think we might have actually had a real wedding had we been able to make invitations like these.

Kim Delaney, late of ABC's Philly, will join fellow former NYPD Blue star David Caruso in the cast of CSI: Miami.

The Supreme Court decided today that juries, not judges, must make the ultimate determination of whether a defendant is sentenced to death. This ruling will result initially in the overturning of at least 150 death sentences nationwide.

Bad weiner. No...bun?.

Many's the night I spent drinking coffee and cramming for exams at the Tastee Diner, where the hash browns rocked and the waitresses always called you "hon." I hope they rebuild.

I know that the entire world has already linked to James Lileks' latest screed, but as usual, it's absolutely worth a look. Make sure to read all the way to the end.

A Washington, DC area restaurant has been ordered to pay a judgement of $37,500 in punitive and compensatory damages to two African-Amerian women whose waiter unilaterally added a 15 percent tip to their bill. The waiter didn't help his case when he got on the stand and admitted that he often expressed his opinion that African-Americans and Hispanics were poor tippers.

I know that this picture is silly, but it totally cracked me up. What an adorable baby!

The Oregon Supreme Court has upheld a $22 million punitive damages award to a physician who claimed that he had been harmed by the failure of a pharmaceutical company to adequately warn about potentially dangerous interactions between its asthma medication and a concurrently taken antibiotic.

In the pharmaceutical industry, we rely heavily on what's called the "learned intermediary" rule -- in a nutshell, it means that if we as a pharmaceutical manufacturer and/or marketer provide adequate information and precautionary warnings to physicians, it is not our responsibility to provide the same level of warning to the end user, the patient. The pharma company is, in essence, able to rely, to a certain extent, upon a physician's education and training, as well as his or her interpretation of the information provided from the pharma company.

In this case, the primary plaintiff was a patient who allegedly sustained brain damage as a result of an interaction between the company's asthma medication and another antibiotic. The plaintiff sued the doctor and the pharma company, but the doctor also sued the pharma company, resulting in the judgement discussed in this article. The jury found that the pharma company knowingly withheld information or misrepresented information concerning toxicity problems associated with its drug.

This is the first case with which I'm familiar where the *physician* has successfully sued over his or her prescription of a pharmaceutical product to a patient who subsequently suffers an injury. More fun in the ever-expanding world of products liability!

A columnist in our local paper penned this gem in this week's edition, lambasting the Catholic Church and the population in general for their dislike of and disgust for John Gotti. Please. Just spare me.

And speaking of sleeping jurors...

I cannot possibly express to you how happy I am that this week is over. I had a fabulous summer-hours day today, in that I arrived early to a completely unexpected and very complimentary email from the Boss, thanking me for all of my hard work and letting me know that he was impressed with how I've been handling the large number of urgent/sensitive/holy CRAP! kind of issues we've been facing lately.

Then, I was appointed to a fairly high-level committee, and was pulled aside by our director of managed care to thank me for some work I did for his department. He told me that "if he didn't think it would piss a lot of other people off, I'd steal you as our departmental attorney!"

This guy is generally a bit difficult, so that made me feel really good.

I went to the bank to do the name change shuffle there, and then finally went grocery shopping so that we don't starve to death.

Now, I'm relaxing. I'm so glad it's the weekend.

So I've finished everything that I set out to accomplish today, which would mean that I could walk my tired ass out the door...

...except that my boss has scheduled us for a conference call at 6 pm.

Shoot me now.

Yet another funny jury story. Not so funny for the prosecutor, I guess.

Still swamped. Back to back to back conference calls starting at 11:30. Hoping to get out of here before 7:30 tonight, but I just don't know. So tired. So very, very tired.

*peeks head out* Oh, hey there. As you can probably tell, work's been a little nutty over the last couple of days. Today is Meeting City, but I'll try and get some interesting stuff up here later on today. *returns to hiding*

I know that I've mentioned here how much I love the National Spelling Bee, having participated in it in the early 1980s. Here's a great article about this year's bee from the Baltimore City Paper.

I love James Lileks, especially when he writes about his dog.

I know that no one cares about this, but David Duchovny and Tea "That Bitch Married to my Other Husband" Leoni are the proud parents of a new little boy. Sister Madelaine West is 3.

Yet another article about my former professor, this time about why he's the only person allowed into his office.

So we got home much, much later than I thought, and I don't have the energy to post a huge catchup entry right now, but here are the weekend highlights:

Friday, I left work and ended up coming home and taking a long nap. Then we went out for Mongolian BBQ. Mmmm, Mongolian BBQ. That's about it.

Yesterday, we waited for the baseball tickets to arrive via FedEx, and then got in our cold-weather gear and headed off to Shea Stadium, where a sellout crowd of fans was waiting to see whether Mets pitcher Shawn Estes would bean Yankee pitcher Roger Clemens when he came up to bat. See, for those of you who don't already know, Clemens hit Mets catcher Mike Piazza in the head with a pitch in 2000, and then later threw a piece of a broken bat at him. Clemens was supposed to pitch at Shea once last season, but Yankee manager Joe Torre changed the rotation so that Clemens didn't have to pitch. The game yesterday was the first time that Clemens, as an AL pitcher in an NL stadium, would have to bat.

Anyway, it's not like there isn't already a huge rivalry between the two teams; there isn't really a need for the fans of each team to go berserk about the potential confrontation. When Clemens came up, Estes threw behind him, and was warned by the umpire. Nothing further happened to Clemens, except that Estes hit a 2-run homer off him, and then Piazza hit another HR off Clemens as well. Sweet! Clemens later left the game with "a bruised toe." Whatever.

So as I was saying in the previous entry, Mets fans are my people. They are rabid, vocal, loyal fans, but they hold a grudge better than anyone. :)

As for the mom and teenagers, I should have specified that they were Yankee fans. They moved into some empty seats behind us late in the game (the Mets won, 8-0) and started discussing the players. When Mo Vaughn came up to bat, they went to town. Now, Mo is...large. And not very quick, to be charitable. But the man can hit, when he's so inclined. Their comment?

"What a big, fat n*****."

And then Mom chimed in with her own colorful commentary. I was just disgusted. Luckily, the Mets scored three runs right about then, and our whole section chimed in to make fun of them for rooting for the Yankees.

What do people teach their children? What kind of household has that particular slur as an everyday vocabulary word? I just don't get it.

And now, the Mets are down 2-0 in the bottom of the 8th with no outs and runners on first and third. Big Mo is up.

Holy crap! He just hit a home run! We love you, Mo!

Sorry for the lack of updates over the past week and especially this weekend. When the boss is out of town, things just get wacky at work, and we've been out of the house most of the weekend, namely at the baseball game and then trekking out to Long Island to look at a used SUV for Dave (he's in the process of selling the Celica), and we're about to head down to PA to see my parents for Father's Day. We're also taking the wedding video and photos, because I think they're the only people in world who haven't watched the video online (mainly because Mom is afraid of the computer). We should be back reasonably early tonight, and I promise a lengthy entry about the Roger Clemens debacle, young teens and their moms who pepper their conversations liberally with the N-word, and why I found out yesterday that Mets fans are, in fact, my people.

Now, there are things that are wrong, and things that are *wrong*. An example of the latter: Our HEAT just kicked on. People, it's the middle of June. What the hell?

And someone gave us the wonderful gift of tickets to the Mets-Yankees game this afternoon, where we're going to freeze our asses off. However, we will get to see Roger Clemens come to the plate at Shea for the first time since he beaned Mike Piazza in the head and then hurled a bat at him. Should be very, very interesting.

The Washington Post has published the transcript of Zacharias Moussaoui's hearing yesterday in U.S. District Court. It's interesting reading, if only to get some insight into how judges deal with defendants who insist on representing themselves when it seems imprudent to do so.

Well, it's just a miserable morning here in northern New Jersey. I came in quite early so that I can attempt to take advantage of my company's summer hours and get out of here (hopefully) around 12:30. Unfortunately, my boss, who's been out of the office at a management meeting since Wednesday morning, just called from his cell and let me know that he "needs to speak to me at length" about a particular issue that we've been dealing with, so I suspect that I may not get out of here until later in the afternoon. Bah.

From this week's New Yorker: a quote from our, ahem, fearless leader:

"And so, in my State of the -- my State of the Union -- or State -- my speech to the nation, whatever you want to call it, speech to the nation -- I asked Americans to give four thousand years -- four thousand hours over the next -- the rest of your life -- of service to America."

Ladies and gentlemen, the President of the United States.

Oh, this is classic. I am not at all exaggerating when I say that the woman whom the seniors are trying to ban from speaking is a fucking nutcase. She's now the president of the school board in the public school district where I grew up, and seven years ago she was accused of making a particularly harsh anti-Semitic remark during a meeting with school officials (she stated that when she got to heaven, she would be "looking down on all the Jews in hell and hearing them snap, crackle and pop"). Although several people testified to the incident, she denied it, and was re-elected to the school board. In the meantime, she and her lawyer husband have brought numerous suits against her municipal zoning board and against the zoning board members *and their spouses* personally, for various alleged infractions.

I don't blame those kids at all.

Well, Dave just called to let me know that it appears that the Devils have already fired coach Kevin Constantine and replaced him with former Bruins coach Pat Burns.

To say that I am exceedingly disappointed about this is an understatement -- I cannot believe that Lou Lamoriello fired Larry Robinson in January, hired Constantine, brought back Robinson as an assistant, and has not decided on another coach entirely. While I'm not disputing that the Devils' play this season, especially during their very short postseason, was pathetic, I really have to wonder if Larry leaving was the impetus for their backslide.

I just love Naomi's entry about her cousin's wedding -- apparently the priest utilized a Chik-Fil-A sandwich as the basis for his homily. You've at least got to give him points for originality, right?

Vermont is about to pass a law that will require pharmaceutical companies to report any gifts to physicians valued at $25 or more. This comes just on the eve of many companies' voluntary adoption of the new PhRMA code on interactions with healthcare professionals.

My company is already dealing with how we plan to implement the code, so it will be interesting to see how this succeeds, and whether other states follow suit.

"That's the thing about magic. There's always consequences. Always!"

As you could probably infer from the previous entry, I had a craptacular day today. I'm now finally home, and am settling in to watch Anderson Cooper.

Tomorrow is another day.

It is extremely unwise to insinuate that I don't have any idea what I'm talking about, and more unwise to copy the world on email making such an insinuation, when the matter in question is my particular area of legal expertise. If you want code title, chapter, and section to prove that I know my stuff, be prepared to drown in paper.

I would love to work for this firm, if only because their site is a total crackup.

I can unequivocally state that any grocery product which speaks to me will in no way ever make it into my cart.

To go along with the story I posted the other day about the New Jersey bar finally thinking about caving in on its waive-in requirements for lawyers, this story details how 11,000 out-of-state lawyers have received tax notices from the state of New Jersey, warning that they might owe taxes on the time spent on pro hac vice cases in New Jersey. a "pro hac vice" appearance is when a lawyer who is not admitted to practice in a particular state is permitted to appear on a case in that state. Under New Jersey procedures, a lawyer admitted pro hac vice is required to register with New Jersey's Lawyers Fund for Client Protection and must pay the $170 that regularly admitted New Jersey lawyers pay.

Also, under New Jersey law, any attorney or firm with worldwide taxable income in excess of $20,000 is required to pay income taxes on sums earned in New Jersey. Attorneys who appear on the pro hac vice list would be liable as well for taxes from income for any other non-court work, such as appearances at depositions.

You can always tell that it's Monday in my office during the summer, because everyone is either wearing a light, short-sleeved top or no sleeves at all. Reason? The building turns off the air conditioning over the weekend, and it takes until about 4 o'clock on Monday for it to get down to a reasonable temperature. Tomorrow, it'll be back to long sleeves again, since it will be like the arctic tundra.

Early last October, weeks after the attacks, I was reading journals to distract myself from everything that was going on, especially from the fact that Dave used to take the PATH through the World Trade Center every morning and but for his odd work schedule and good timing on that morning, could have been walking through the scene at the time, when I came upon this entry by Jessie (who's one of my favorite fellow lawyer-cum-journalers and people, to boot, anyway), in which she mentioned a particular song by Ben Folds. The entry contains the lyrics to the song, which I've republished here, as well.

When I say that reading those words and listening to the song smacked me right between the eyes, I am completely underplaying the impact that they had on me. Don't get me wrong -- I felt like I had been crying nonstop at that point, but it was more the silent tears welling up and running down my cheeks as I processed the endless onslaught of media coverage. Reading those words just then, though -- I think that was the first time that I sobbed, really sobbed in that nose-running, breath-heaving, unable to even speak a word kind of way since the day of the attacks. At that moment, I realized how much Dave meant to me, really, really meant to me, and how utterly devastated and bereft I was at even the briefest thought of losing him, of having had him go off to work and vanish, of saying goodbye to him even for the shortest while. I don't think I had permitted the magnitude of that kind of loss to permeate my heart until then.

I'm listening to it again now, and I'm still crying, but now it's because it means something completely different. We're married. We're husband and wife. We're in it for the long haul, till death do us part. And while I know that nothing is certain, and nothing has guarantees, and many people who lost their loved ones on that terrible day felt that blindingly sunny morning the way that I feel now, I know that I am, at least in this moment, the luckiest.

And I know that when we finally have our post-wedding party for our family and friends, and when we dance together to this song, I will most likely weep because, well, that's what I do. But I'll know that the reasons are different now. I was lucky for one particular reason on the day that I first heard this song, but I am the luckiest for so many more reasons now. And I hold on to that.

I don't get
Many things right the first time
In fact I am told that a lot

That I am
I am
I am the luckiest

-- Ben Folds

Here's a fun one. A man in Florida won a new trial because the jury pool chosen for his trial had too many names starting with the letter "G" in it.

These Dartmouth brats really need to shut their pieholes. I would have given my eyeteeth to have Mr. Rogers at my graduation, instead of the pompous blowhard who actually spoke. And spoke. And spoke. In 95-degree heat.

A few comments about the MTV Movie Awards:

1. Kelly Osbourne (although she was lipsynching) acquitted herself very well with her version of "Papa Don't Preach." She's got a decent voice and a not-bad stage presence. Dave thought that she was singing it too much like Madonna's original, but hey, she's 17. Cut her some slack.

2. Jack Black is my hero, and Sarah Michelle Gellar was much less annoying than I had feared she would be. The little fake movie clips were hilarious, and the two really seemed to have some chemistry.

3. Orlando Bloom looked entirely like a porn star (and not at all in a good way) in his video accepting his "Male Breakthrough Star" award. He looked so much better in the movie. Like, startlingly so. We played "guess the accent" when he was speaking, and I found out later that he's actually from Kent, England. Dave bet Irish, and I thought he was from New Zealand. We both lose.

4. Ewan McGregor. Even though he wears a lot of eyeliner, still a hottie. Very much a hottie.

5. Brittany Murphy has quite a set of pipes on her. Settle down, people, I said PIPES. As in, she has a good voice. She also enjoyed the Eminem performance just a wee tad bit too much.

Overall, it was better than I expected. Of course, I was flipping between that and the hockey game, which ended in a most disappointing way. I can't believe I'm rooting for the Hurricanes, but hey, if they knocked my beloved Devils out of the playoffs, I want to see them do well. And I hate Detroit. Hate hate hate.

This is just appalling. It's bad enough that Chandra Levy's remains weren't found for a year, even though Rock Creek Park was supposedly thoroughly searched at the time of her disappearance. I'm willing to give the cops the benefit of the doubt on that point, only because I've been through the Park and know that there are some sections which are very dense and difficult to navigate. But once you find her, how do you NOT find a tibia which was only 25 yards away from the recovered skull? That bone is 12-14 inches long. Think about that. How hard would that be to see?

Well, this afternoon was sent at the completely unhelpful Montclair branch of the Social Security Administration and at the doctor. While I was taken care of at the SSA rather quickly, as I anal retentively had all of my paperwork complete before I even set foot in the door, I was appalled at the attitude and obnoxiousness of the staff there. My tax dollars at work.

Oh, and I have yet another sinus infection. Bactrim, here I come. Yay!

One of the things that has bugged me about New Jersey is that their bar has historically insisted that any lawyer who wants to be admitted in the state *must* sit for the full bar exam, regardless of their length of experience or how many other states have admitted them. I'm admitted in Pennsylvania, for example, and would be permitted to waive in to the New York bar because I've been practicing for five years in good standing. New Jersey? No such luck. Fortunately for me, working on the corporate side means that I don't need a New Jersey bar admission. However, it seems that all of this might be about to change. The NJ State Supreme Court's Ad Hoc Committee on Bar Admissions is about to recommend that out-of-state lawyers be admitted on motion to practice in New Jersey. Because I've met all of the conditions listed in this article, I will most likely be able to waive in to the NJ bar in the fall. Hooray!

For the love of God, could someone, ANYONE, teach our illustrious president how to say the word "nuclear" correctly?

It is NOT. PRONOUNCED. "NUCULAR."

First Joey, and that was bad enough -- now Dee Dee too?

Also at the Post, union workers withheld most of their bylines on articles and columns as a form of protest against management regarding the current contract offer on the table from Post management. Check out the front page of today's edition.

The Washington Post has an interesting tale about an FBI investigation into activities at a New Orleans Brothel. While 15 people were indicted on various charges relating to prostitution, was an investigation of this magnitude really necessary? Also note a guest quote from my former professor and media darling Jonathan Turley.

R&B star R. Kelly has been indicted in Illinois on 21 counts of child pornography relating to a videotape of an alleged sex act Kelly performed with a then 14 year-old girl. He could get 15 years in prison.

Patrick's back! Patrick's back!

In a somewhat related story, the US Patent and Trademark office has announced a proposal to outsource some of its searches for prior art, thus lightening the workload of backlogged patent examiners. Independent contractors would be permitted to do prior art searches for small, independent inventors.

Twenty-nine states sued Bristol-Myers Squibb this weeks, alleging that the company fraudulently kept generic versions of its cancer drug Taxol from coming to market. This case will be interesting to watch from a patent perspective, as drug companies are already under fire for hoarding patent protections to make as much money as possible from their compounds before patent expiration.

This article details the sad and pathetic experiences of a 15 year-old girl wunderkind sent off to college at the University of Alabama at Birmingham -- alleged sexual abuse, drug addiction, and crime, all by the age of 17, and allegedly at the hands of a number of student athletes.

You know, I never *loved* Julia Roberts, but the more I read about her, the less I like her.

Is the weight of school textbooks really something that the state legislature needs to mandate? I know that kids' backpacks are getting heavier -- I see little kids waiting for the bus with these itty bitty rolling suitcase-type things -- but I really think that the state of New Jersey has bigger fish to fry. Like, say, lowering our freaking car insurance rates.

We all know that the Feds tried to listen in on Tony Soprano with a bug in a desk lamp, but did you know that the state of NJ ranks fourth in the nation in state-authorized wiretaps? Not surprisingly, the bulk of the state's taps occurred in counties in northern New Jersey.

Here's a little story about what happens when the CEO of a dotcom gets tangled up in Scientology.

The most shocking thing about this article? I had no freaking IDEA that Greta van Susteren is a Scientologist. Is this widely known? Do I live in a cloud?

For all of you Alias watchers out there: Lena Olin will play Sydney's mom. I had read recently that talks with Sela Ward didn't pan out.

And another thing.

Last night, Dave and I happened to watch the Sopranos rerun at 8 pm, before the season finale of Six Feet Under, and it just so happened to be last season's finale, "Army of One." Now, in this episode, which we also watched at the end of last season, the FBI decides to send one of their female agents, Deborah Ciccerone, undercover in order to try and get information from Adriana.

When the episode aired the first time around, the agent was played by Fairuza Balk, who, according to that IMDB listing, played the same character in two episodes in the first season.

Last night, lo and behold, when the main FBI guy asked for Deborah to come into the conference room, she was played by a completely different actress -- a tall blonde. It was painfully obvious in both that scene and in a later scene where Deborah, as "Danielle," meets up with Adriana in a mall, that the scenes were shot later and then cut into the episode. There was also a bit of dialogue missing from the shopping scene, where we found out that Adriana is from Nutley.

Now, I'm guessing that somehow Fairuza Balk isn't returning to the show in the fall, but that the character is; that's all fine and good, but the weird editing and completely different-looking actress really threw me off. The other woman's name ran in the credits, but it wasn't anyone I recognized; the actress was really much less than impressive. I guess this is like what happened when Bewitched changed Darrens in midstream.

Or maybe not.

Well, what I thought was a cold appears to be another in a long line of sinus infections. My ears are clogged, I can't stop coughing, and...well, let's just say that there's a lot of phlegm involved.

And I can't go to the doctor until Friday. Bleah, I say. Bleah.

Take, for example, the indecent conduct law of the state of Maine. Simply put, that statute prohibits anyone from "knowingly exposing [his or her] genitals [in public] under circumstances that, in fact, are likely to cause affront or alarm."

The Supreme Court has let stand a ruling by a Texas Appeals Court that a death row inmate whose lawyer slept during his trial deserves a new trial. Texas wanted to go ahead and excute the inmate anyway.

Tonight's TV dilemma: 9 pm.

Tony Awards, the ABC documentary on the Hamptons, the Bachelorettes in Alaska, and, most importantly, the season finale of Six Feet Under.

Tivo is only so much help, you know?

I was chatting briefly the other night with the illustrious Jessie, who was asking if and when I was ever going to start writing "real entries" again. Believe me, I've been wanting to start doing that for a long time now, but with work and the wedding and the house and everything else, plus being incredibly sick of the old Mondrian-esque template, I was feeling really uninspired. Since I have the spiffy new digs, and since things around here have calmed down considerably (this is our first weekend without real plans in about eight weeks), I'm writing. Get yourselves a drink, people. This is going to be a long one.

It's getting hot. Hot and humid. My most unfavorite time of the year, weather-wise. I honed my hatred of the evil heat and humidity during my seven years of schooling and work in our nation's capital. Don't get me wrong -- I love Washington, DC, and I miss it all the time, but for God's sake, spending July and August in DC (for three years with a car with no air conditioning) is something that I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy. Well, maybe July.

Anyway, it's our first bout of real heat in the new house, and I've learned a few good things. Our side of the duplex is much shadier than the tenants' side, which means that our rooms remain a good few degrees cooler than the rest of the house. Unfortunately, our bedroom is not part of this shadefest, and having a window exhaust fan and a floor fan running full blast are just about keeping it bearable for sleeping.

This weekend's agenda was basically to do nothing. I did go into the city Friday night to have dinner with the girls from my former company, and we had quite the good time at Blue Fin, where we made friends with our cute, alterna-band-looking waiter, Kevin, and were all bought drinks by a cute Scottish auditor named Cory at the bar, his obviously very young age notwithstanding.

Yesterday, Dave and I did practically nothing. We ended up going out for "lunch" to Lone Star around 4, and then headed up to the Montclair State campus at 7 to see the New Jersey Jackals whomp the team from Quebec. I'm really starting to love minor league baseball. We've got three teams within a half hour's drive, and it's a lowkey, fun, cheap way to spend an evening outside. I think we're going to be doing that more often.

Today, I'm off to the grocery store, and then I desperately need to clean the bathroom. I also have about three weeks' worth of newspapers and magazines to either read or toss. I also have a 100-page draft drug sampling manual to read for a meeting I'm taking for my boss tomorrow. How thrilling.

Hopefully, the rest of our wedding pictures will be arriving soon and I can post them up here. We were very pleased with the way the ones from the chapel turned out, and they've already gone into an album which was an engagement gift to me from my paralegal and admin.

The other thing that I haven't been talking much about is the fact that Friday was Dave's last day of work. Yes, that's right folks, he's been the victim of another dotcom layoff. I hadn't felt that it was my story to tell, but Dave has given me permission to share the news, as it's been affecting our psyches for about the past six weeks or so.

While he and I are both upset about the unemployment aspect of it, I think that we're both looking at it as a blessing in disguise. Dave was feeling progressively more and more burnt out at his job, tired of the constant ridiculous hours and calls on weekends and holidays. We've got the tenants now, so financially it's not as big a deal as it might have been a few months back, but I'm feeling resentful of his company for bringing him up here, working him to death, and then cutting him loose when it suited them.

Anyway, if anyone in the NJ/NY metro area is looking for a kickass network/systems manager with pharma and internet financial industry experience, either full-time or consulting, please drop me a line. In the meantime, he's planning on reliving my experience from last summer, and getting some cleaning, yardwork, and house refinishing work done. Watch out, Bob Vila!

Here's a creepy story about a young woman who, of course, was "an honor student and star athlete." Oh, and she also killed and dismembered a couple and, along with her new husband, threw them in an as-yet-unlocated dumpster.

I'm setting up the notify list again, this time through Moveable Type. If you're inclined to receive a little note when I've updated, you can sign up over in the sidebar there.

So as you can see, the lovely and extremely talented Julia has delivered unto me this fabulous new design. I'm still getting familiar with the whole Moveable Type thing, so please pardon the dust until everything is settled.

Dave sent me this link this morning, announcing the death of Faye Dancer, the All American Girls Professional Baseball League player who was the inspiration for Madonna's character "All the Way Mae" in A League of Their Own. The story of her life is both amazing and sad.